Bad Things Are Learned Quickly (1)

We arrived without difficulty at the place where the beast called the Myryan King, the king of the Myryans, had lived. We only had to travel easily along the vast corridor that had been opened when the Myryan King appeared.

A corridor wide enough for five people to walk shoulder to shoulder. At the end of that wide path lay a cavern far larger than the corridor.

The walls of the spacious area, the size of a sports field, were studded here and there with dazzling gems.

A result that hadn’t been reported in the accomplishments of my previous life. Even the aura I could roughly sense was unusual.

Above all, the moment we entered the cavern, a dense, pure divine power pressed on us as if we had entered an underground training ground.

“What is this… ?”

Surprised, Arun asked, but I hadn’t come here expecting anything.

We’d taken down the Myryan King, virtually the final boss, so we came to inspect its lair — I didn’t expect to hit a jackpot like this.

“I don’t know either, so let me check it out first…”

I twisted out a hexagonal blue gem and a transparent gem embedded in the wall.

‘Check.’

“Crazy…”

The crafting materials are Rare.

I didn’t know how much attribute affinity they would increase, but as soon as I checked the Attribute Crystal’s info, several recipes popped into my head.

And they raise mana affinity too! Wizards would rush at these with their eyes on fire!

“Phew… The real jackpot was somewhere else, huh…”

While admiring the blue and transparent crystals, I felt everyone’s gaze on me.

Everyone was just waiting for my orders.

They clenched and unclenched their fists as if they’d rush forward and strip every crystal off the walls the moment I gave the word.

I met my party’s eyes and spoke firmly.

“Everyone… take everything. Not a single one left behind!”

“Yes!”

“Yahoo!! Treasure!”

“Amazing!”

“This looks like mana, and that one—what is it?”

“What, it’s probably spirit.”

Their raucous voices as they moved in a crowd were full of accomplishment and joy.

Watching my party carefully pry crystals out of the walls and ceiling, I moved too.

Because the ceiling was high, the two mages, including me, who could use magic mainly climbed up; the rest worked the walls, and the short Naruan mostly carried the crystals.

Crystals were stacked neatly by type.

Seeing crystals of the same color piled by size, I had to force myself not to gape and drool.

Crystals of each color accumulated, and Lee Hyo-ju sorted the counts and put them into a magic pouch.

Well, she tried to.

Crackle—Clang—!

“Eek!”

The crystal Lee Hyo-ju tried to put into the magic pouch shattered with sparks into fragments that scattered everywhere, and her palm was stained bright red with blood.

“Ouch…”

“Mae Young-ryeong!”

At my call, Mae Young-ryeong rushed over and quickly treated Lee Hyo-ju’s bleeding hand.

Once healed, Lee Hyo-ju’s hand only bore a faint bloodstain as evidence of the wound.

“…What happened?”

Unlike before, the worry in my voice surprised even myself.

Lee Hyo-ju didn’t seem to notice; she lamented the crystal reduced to powder.

“…I was trying to put it in the magic pouch…”

The sudden scream drew everyone together.

Talis quietly lifted a crystal and infused divine power into it. There was no particular problem.

After a moment’s thought, he gestured to Arun to try infusing mana.

The instant Arun infused mana, it crackled and shattered into pieces.

Naturally Arun’s palm bled too; like Lee Hyo-ju, he held out his hand to Mae Young-ryeong, but she only tossed a low-grade potion.

“Disciple, this reacts against mana. It seems fine with Chaos, though… We can’t put these in a magic pouch. It’s the same for pocket dimensions. So I can’t either.”

Everyone’s faces showed shock at Talis’s conclusion.

Only then did I understand why, in my previous life, these crystals hadn’t been properly reported.

Even if someone had found them, one person could carry at most four to six, so they couldn’t haul away large quantities.

Besides, the forest of beasts wouldn’t be easy enough to traverse with bundles of loot.

“I’ll try.”

I picked up a red crystal and carefully put it into my inventory; there was no reaction.

The problem was that they were different sizes and held different amounts of energy, so they wouldn’t stack.

I clicked my tongue lightly and had the group rest for a bit.

I sat beside the piled crystals, took out a ‘Portable Workshop Set [Unique]’, and began crafting each crystal one by one.

It was the process of creating intermediate crafting materials before making the items.

The materials created this way all have the same name. With the prefix ‘crafted’, the amount of energy each crystal holds becomes uniform.

As a result, they trick the inventory into recognizing them as identical items that stack in one slot.

Meanwhile, the members cheered at Talis’s assurance that the Myryan lair was fully cleared and safe, and busied themselves making a camp in a corner of the cavern.

They pitched tents, laid out sleeping bags, and made a fire, bustling about to enjoy warm food for the first time in a while.

A few people occasionally offered to help me, but that wouldn’t work.

The ‘crafting’ I was doing would seem nonsensical to traditional artisans.

After a long stretch of repetitive work that practically did itself by power, I finished sorting all the crystals and stood up; everyone else seemed asleep, and the surroundings were quiet.

My inventory held twelve slots—six types of crystals: mana, spirit, Water, Fire, Earth, Wind—each in two sizes, their colors scattered across the slots.

Just looking at them gave me a feeling of satisfaction.

Attribute-related crafting materials will be used in many places going forward.

First is Hazel, who wants to summon spirits. For Hazel, spirits are less a combat tool than a benchmark that keeps her identity steady.

And Arun has affinity with Water and Earth attributes. His attribute affinity undoubtedly affects his magic greatly.

They also help with information gathering, so if there’s enough to spare, I can give some to Lee Hyo-ju.

Of course I’ll use them too, but it’s best to stock up for the woman from my past life who hasn’t joined us yet.

Moreover, my inventory held not only the crystals we just got but also previously acquired ‘Attribute Creation Stones’, ‘Attribute Cores’, Enhancement Stones, and the Myryan’s hide.

After finishing sorting the loot and lying down to rest briefly, Talis, whom I thought was asleep, silently got up and came over.

“Aren’t you sleeping?”

“No. Heh heh. By the way, where do you plan to go next?”

“…Is there anywhere you’d like to visit?”

“A place I’d like to visit—what the hell. Where would a guy my age have such a place? I’m just asking. Also, it seems the gardeners are worried and want to get back quickly, so I’m asking.”

Indeed, it’s understandable they’d worry since I’m said to bear the Creator’s blessing and run about everywhere.

But if I live as a representative anyway, these incidents will be commonplace, and the gardeners will probably gather to devise some measures.

Even if it’s not direct aid, if the gardeners are the driving force, their indirect help can be more powerful than many organizations.

They can rival a representative of a Heavenly God backed by the Holy Realm Alliance or a representative of a demon god supported by the Dark Empire.

‘Well, I leaked that on purpose anyway.’

“For now, we’ll head to the spirit forest.”

“Huh? The spirit forest? Why there? There’s hardly any food there.”

“I’ll leave the chicks there for now, and I have a place to go for a short while.”

“You’re leaving the chicks?”

“Yes, please take care of them. Put our chicks, especially the new ones, through their paces. Do whatever you like as long as you don’t maim them.”

At that moment, was it just my imagination that the three representatives who were sleeping shuddered?

“Really? Well… wait! You’re going somewhere alone?”

“…Yes. Ha ha. It might take about ten days.”

Thus ended the historic first achievement expedition of the Rebound legion in a streak of good fortune.

A place from which one looks down at clouds drifting leisurely below.

So Caelum chose to become the god of the skies. It felt as if he had become a true omnipotent deity who gazed down upon all beings.

Caelum, who took self-satisfaction in watching humans struggle below day by day, had recently found each day increasingly irritating.

His foolish representative who had been captured early in the ambitiously prepared Battlefield of the Gods.

Not only had the representative been captured, but the system forced Caelum to watch the representative reduced to a cripple, which irritated him further.

It was like turning on the TV and only seeing a channel with people you truly hate doing things you despise on repeat.

Three years passed like that.

“Damn it!”

Today, Caelum’s face was plastered with irritation as he stared at Unos, who kept wriggling in the back of his mind.

“…But why hasn’t that bitch visited yet?”

The representative of Aetas, who used to visit at least every two weeks to mock Unos and laugh at Caelum for choosing such a representative, hadn’t shown up for over twenty days now.

“Could she be away? No, it might be a trap. Especially since that bastard’s god is Ludicer.”

Caelum was startled when he saw the face of the fellow who had been putting on that obnoxious act while three gods had incarnated.

“…Yes, not yet. Not yet… This must be used at the end, at a decisive moment.”

Caelum shoved the scroll he had been fidgeting with into an extra-dimensional space and glared at Unos, who kept twitching nervously.

And he would later look back on this day and regret it, pounding his fist on the ground.

Living unimaginably long is both a blessing and a curse. That’s why you rarely see old beings who are sane—whether dragons, gods, or spirits.

―From Aetas’s diary.

The forest of spirits and fairies south of Exorsus feels more like a well-kept flowerbed, with various grasses and flowers blending together rather than trees.

Beautiful Flowers and Herbs.

However, among those plants there are sometimes the Beautiful Flowers and Herbs that eat animals, which is a problem.

Like the flower currently biting Naruan’s head.

“Ugh… Hey! Ahn ah?! (Won’t you let go?) kwwii (I’ll die!)”

“Sigh… Don’t just stand there watching, do something about it. Oh, stop laughing!”

“…Pfft. Yes. Heh heh. Still, our youngest.”

Hugo stepped in and slashed the flower; Naruan, who had been thrashing, couldn’t control her strength and fell flat on her butt. Hugo found the sight so funny he doubled over laughing.

We were on our way into the spirit forest.

As we drew closer from the land of beasts to the spirit forest, beasts and monsters dwindled, but trap-like flowers like this one were a problem.

They didn’t usually kill or seriously injure anyone, but if an otherwise harmless flower suddenly opened its maw and bit someone, the procession would halt.

With beasts or monsters you can sometimes scare them off with momentum, but these plants have no such sense. Once you’re in range, they’ll bite without hesitation.

The first to be bitten by a trap flower was Talis.

It happened while the four transcendents—Talis, Biosis, Jimnas, and the gardener—were gathered plotting something.

A flower suddenly chomped down on Talis’s head while he was mulling over making something. And it bit him firmly.

At that moment not only Talis but the entire party froze in their tracks.

It was like the feeling courtiers might have seeing a child pluck a tyrant’s mustache—strictly speaking, the group didn’t just stop; they turned to ice.

Whoosh—

Is that describing Talis’s wrathful aura?

No—he was actually burning. All the surrounding grasses, flowers, and small trees were aflame.

“Y-You! How dare you, mere weed, bite Destruction’s Talis!!”

We had to restrain Talis who was about to raze the spirit forest.

I signaled Biosis, but he only responded indifferently.

“My disciple, to tell you now, that old man’s true epithet isn’t Destruction but Mad Destruction. Haven’t I called him a crazy old coot for nothing? Once he goes mad, there’s no stopping him. Leave him be.”

True to Biosis’s nonchalant remark, the commotion only ended after Talis turned the surroundings into wasteland for about thirty minutes.

Even after that, from time to time someone in the party would fall into a trap, and with Naruan last, we finally stood at the barrier entrance to the spirit forest.

“Disciple. It’s good you’ve come this far, but how are you going to enter… damn, you’re a spirit summoner, aren’t you?”

Before Talis finished speaking, four highest-grade spirits had been summoned around me—precisely, four spirits that evolved from high to highest grade.

―Long time no see, friend.

―Huh? This is?

―Oh ho…..

―The entrance to the spirit forest, I see.

“Yes. We’ll stay here for a while with the group.”

As if in reply to my words, the barrier opened, as if to say, Why are you even asking?

We entered the spirit forest.

Inside the spirit forest was really… nothing special. From a human perspective, it was the worst, perhaps.

The scenery inside the barrier was unappealing; the trees and grass swayed as if they were reflections on water.

The party naturally looked sullen at the underwhelming scene inside the barrier—except for one person.

“Oh! Ohhh! Hooh… This place is truly amazing. Partner, thank you.”

Hazel, a woman who eagerly looked all around, then oddly quick-stepped over, kissed a spirit on the cheek, and busied herself again drifting about to survey the surroundings.

―Heh heh, your partner is still the same, friend.

―Indeed.

―But why doesn’t your partner summon spirits?

―Right?

‘Well, what did she say? Was it that she’s shy?’

―Hm?

―What?

―What?

―Ehh?

I snorted and led the party onward.

In any case, since we’d be staying here for a month, we needed to greet the owners of the place and be assigned lodging.